The spirit was too old for forms. Whatever its original appearance, it had long since been eroded. There remained only an endless inner distance, and an indistinct halo of presence.

The girl followed her teacher, struggling at times where the flows of All-world grew thick with yearning, stumbling where it eddied with the calls of living things. Always the spirit lifted her gently to the path beyond, most careful of its charge. After an immeasurable duration it paused, and gestured into the amorphous light below.She knew this bit. She remembered what came next.

“The spiral forms the world. Look into it, and see your world truly. All winds blow along it, over arcs too broad for mind but made of mind, coil upon coil. Each thought, each creature, lies so, beside its ancestors. Yours have departed from you, but the wayward and the lost will know you for their own. So those coils are your path, too, child mine, my dreamer. These coils of air… see the breathing universe ascend and descend again in this place where the worlds dream as one, at heart of the spiral. Some dreams golden as they were at the dawn of time, others blighted for want of purer draughts.

All those who walk your earth leave their traces here. It is a sensing, living thing, the spiral. The core pulses its red song to the stars; the realm of spirits runs as arterial blood between the distant and the near. Places there are where what passes beyond may be felt only dimly, and great effort must be exerted to follow on; but where the great Powers reside the realms eddy and merge anew: such a place is the Sighing Mire in your East, or the Singing Groves of Noore.

This have I told you, child mine, of the gazing into the spiral. When first I came to dry your tears… when the years were soft upon you and your light unaltered, I first took you by the hand and led you on these whispering paths.

In your loneliness you called out to every passing soul, for the hallowed ones of the beyond looked little on you, if they did at all, and your companions in the world-time crossed the threshold to the lands of their ancestors. You wandered on. I found you among the roots of a great blood oak, trying to learn its song.

And I, who have been silent since the world began, uttered sound.”

In her bed in the Orcish hearthcomb, Uukumanu woke. Outside, the wind howled over the cliffs.“I will find you again, old friend, and break whatever chain holds you prisoner. Baku Ap’ep will not have you.”

Uukumanu - ranger and spirit seekerTuvstarr - Black Queen of Pharon GlosImliss - High Elven researcher in Blood MagicAetheldred - Sorcerer and psychomancer, daughter of the Völva of the Blood of Alfhild